Dreamyard
by VeltPunch
Summary: Hikaru had forsaken the Go world years ago, finding her dreams purposeless without Sai. Years later when she returns as a different person, it is her young son Sai who's dreams return to the Go world. femHikaru
1. pinwheel

_Dear brain, if you ever manage to make sense, please inform me immediately. _

_Much love, Veltpunch._

* * *

><p>"The Insei test?" Shindou Hikaru turned around fully at that, scooting the box until it rested fully onto the counter top.<p>

Sai nodded fervently, scampering up the front steps with a box of his own. He dropped it with more force than necessary on the wooden flooring, looking up at his mother with wide, beguiling eyes. "Yes!"

"Why would you want to do that?" Asked the blonde dubiously, moving to the front door again with a baffled look to her face.

"Waya-kun said he's taking it this year!" Sai called from where he trailed behind her. "And I wanted to take it together."

"Waya-kun, huh?" Hikaru snorted exasperatedly, lugging another one of the boxes sprawled out on the front walkway in various sizes. It must be some sort of Shindou syndrome to have such a bewildering fondness for Wayas.

"Noburo said he could have taken it last year—but his dad wanted him to wait another year and think about it." Boasted Sai proudly, toting two bags wrapped in his small arms.

Hikaru rolled her eyes. "Noburo-kun might be showing off." An understatement, most likely.

But fortunately, the subject of the Insei test seemed to drop completely, as Sai's attention was directed ultimately to the subject of bedrooms; a conversation of about ten seconds before he bolted up the stairs in search of his room. Hikaru hefted a few more boxes into the bare kitchen, before wiping her brow from the work and standing in the glaringly empty diffused light of the house.

What a big, lonely thing, Hikaru thought. Nothing but austere white walls and the shining finish of glimmering wood.

And Sai, of course, who seemed to make enough noise for five small children up on the second floor.

"You better not be breaking anything up there!" Hikaru called half-heartedly, aware that there were few things to _be _broken, anyway,

Her reply was muffled, followed by another thump.

Hikaru blew the bangs out of her face and reached for a pocket knife to start slicing open some boxes.

.

.

.

Why Yeongha even needed a sabbatical when clearly his Go career was still increasing to it's zenith was quite beyond the young woman, but she knew better than to try and persuade the man out of his decision. Generally, whenever she attempted to do so, the two ended up in an explosive, mulish argument that soon descended into inconsequential territory, before spinning off hand entirely. Hikaru had given enough thorough introspection to realize that this was half her fault, seeing as though she was just as stubborn, if not more so, than Yeongha.

That didn't mean she was pleased any more, though.

"How's it going, anyway?" She asked over breakfast, attempting to be amiable regardless of the pinched expression to her face.

"Well." Replied the Korean professional. "There's much to learn from the Japanese Pros."

"You were saying the exact opposite four months ago." Hikaru pointed out wryly, stabbing her yogurt with more force than necessary.

It was true, though. Yeongha never held his Japanese counterparts with much regard, with the exception of Touya Akira, who seemed to be held with at least some amount of esteem. Hikaru suspected this was more of a jealous rivalry, however, as it was she who had clearly stated that she had valued the Japanese boy as a rival all those years ago. And Yeongha hadn't taken that very well, only made worse by his near-defeat at the Hokuto cup the following year.

Yeongha shrugged. "I've changed my mind." He said, stubbornly.

Hikaru rolled her eyes, before continuing casually, "You haven't met anyone named Yoshitaka, have you?"

"Waya-san?" Yeongha blinked, setting down his teacup. "I have. Why do you ask?"

"Ah, it's nothing." Hikaru wasn't sure if she wanted to bring up Sai's outburst from yesterday. After all, more than likely it was nothing to be too concerned about. Sai was continuously changing his focus depending on his mood. One day it was a professional skateboarder, the next a pro soccer player. She wasn't too worried that he'd acutely focus his attention on something he'd never been too interested in before. "Was he nice?"

"I suppose." He took a bite out of his toast. "I didn't really talk to him."

"I see." Was all she replied with.

Yeongha eyed her cautiously, as if judging whether to push the conversation. Ultimately, he didn't though—and for that, she was grateful.

He looked up to the clock; the only thing yet to find its way onto the walls amidst the sea of boxes piled up in corners.

"Eight o'clock." He muttered, looking annoyed that so much time had escaped him already. The man got up, running a hand through his hair as he trashed the paper. "I'll meet you at six in front of the restaurant?"

"Don't keep me waiting." Hikaru snorted, before looking up with annoyance. "I clearly remember you saying the same thing yesterday about unpacking—but that was a no show."

"And I'm sorry for that." Her husband said, sincerely. "I got tied up with an after-match discussion."

"I'm sure."

With that she got up as well, putting her bowl in the sink and moving towards the living room, where a tiny mountain was growing in the center near the wrapped furniture.

"Don't be mad." He sounded at least slightly worried. "It won't be like this all the time."

It hadn't been in Korea, she supposed, but this was Japan, and there were many differences to behold between the two countries. The woman turned around, arms folded. Her husband was waiting by the door, looking like he wanted something. With a sigh the blonde walked over.

"I love you." She said, looking resigned as she leaned against the doorway.

Yeongha smiled. "I know."

He bent down to give her a chaste kiss to the lips, an amused smile to his face as he spotted Hikaru's sour expression. "Onions." She said contrarily, smelling the vegetable from his breakfast, and he only chuckled as he walked out the door.

Hikaru watched him leave fondly, before turning back to the long stretch of hallway by the foyer.

"Sai-chan!" She bellowed, listening for the telltale _thump _as her young son fell out of his bed with a start. When it came, she smirked. "Get up! We're visiting your great grandfather today!"

There was another crash, followed by a loud, whining, _"Whaaat?-!"_

_._

_._

_._

If there was one thing Hikaru wasn't particularly fond of in Japan, it was the fact that she had lived there before. Everything was half-familiar, buildings renovated from years past and the occasional landmark that held vague recollections to her. Driving Sai all the way to Heihachi's house was full of nostalgic anecdotes welling in the back of her head.

She had thought she'd left it all behind, but it seemed the past had a way of catching up to her.

Sai was, luckily enough, engrossed in his gameboy and the many, unending levels of pokemon to fully complain about the situation, much to her relief. He never had to deal with a lot of family, as her parents and grandparents lived many plane hours away, and Yeongha didn't have any at all. Aside form his perpetually sour mother, anyway, but she was mostly overlooked.

The car slowed to a halt at one of the lights, and Hikaru turned to look at her young son.

"Sai," She began slowly, wondering if she should even bring it up again. "Are you still thinking about what you said earlier?"

"What'd I say?" Mumbled the boy distractedly, various alarming beeping noises emitting from the console's sound system.

"You don't remember?" She asked, hesitant with hope.

There was a moment when Sai said nothing, and then;

"Nope."

The woman breathed out a sigh of relief.

So he had truly forgotten after all.

It wasn't that Hikaru had anything against the game—after all, it wasn't too long ago that she was obsessive over it herself—but it was only inevitable that, if Sai decided to join he'd soon be sucked into the galactic center of that little globular cluster, a condensed world where his presence wouldn't go unnoticed for long. And that would mean a lot of questions for the young woman to own up to—more than she'd ever care to answer, at any rate.

She pulled into the quiet suburban neighborhood, hand to her forehead in a berated expression.

She'd been naïve and frivolous then, with a ghost for her best friend, a truly frightening being with an insurmountable power that had forever shaken the world, tremulous aftershocks still rippling through the silence of the internet. The patron Go Saint would never log on again, but his essence remained trapped inside the hardware in the various kifu that many collected. And Hikaru, Hikaru had given up her dream to become professional, moving to Korea to continue her studies.

But even there, Go seemed to follow her.

By the time she had parked the car Sai had furiously shut off his gameboy, proclaiming that this particular gym leader was too hard to beat, and was already struggling with his seatbelt and picking at the child safety lock.

Suffice to say, his great-grandfather was _more _than delighted to see him.

Instead, he was downright ecstatic.

Hikaru was more concerned over the fact that Heihachi could possibly trigger a fatal heart condition with the way he was swinging about the house at his age, and was too busy to bask in the contentment of knowing that she had been right all along. Her family had been at odds with her clear, stubborn decision to start a family so early in her life, in a foreign country no less, with a boy they'd never met. Of course, in the face of the sprite-like Sai, with his bubbly green eyes and deceivingly lovely face, it didn't take long for them to melt into complacency.

As her grandfather hoisted Sai around his traditional house, Hikaru excused herself into the quiet, warm morning air, heaving a sigh of relief as the stunning silence seemed to overtake her. In front of her, the shed loomed among the shade of dotting trees.

_Sai…_

The curve of his fan, one eye visible and smoldering with a determined, elusive emotion, the long, pooling ends of his hair and the slight bow to his lips. Hikaru held the diaphanous images crystal clear in her head, yet the detailed panoramic eluded her. Sai was forever nothing more than the brief, hushed sound of a musical voice between the world of dreams and reality.

"Hey Gramps!" She called back into the house.

There was the muffled shriek of laughter, and what seemed to be her grandfather chasing her son around the corner with a broomstick.

When no reply came, she continued on. "I'm gonna be outside for a bit, okay? Don't kill him!"

And with that, she waltzed over to shed without any second thoughts, wrenched the door open, and ascended into the musty gloom.

The amount of dust that erupted from the mere movement of opening the door made her squint into the retrograde light of the sun, shuffling blindly up the stairs. She finally managed to make it to the ancient Goban, after causing a vesuvian explosion of dust when her shin hit a box, covering herself and the Goban entirely with dust.

She wiped it off slowly, wondering why her heart was beating so much faster as she carefully uncovered the Goban, inch by inch. Would she see the stains again? The blood, the tears, and the inevitable evidence that Sai had once well and truly existed?

"_Mom_?"

Hikaru jolted up in surprise, hand jarring against the olden wood and revealing all of it.

Nothing.

"Mom!"

The young blonde stared down at the board, all the anxious trepidation leaving her with one enormous swell of relief. Relief and… disappointment?

"There you are!"

The shed door was viciously swung open, as her young son beamed up at her with a silly expression to his face, with what seemed to be baking soda covering half of his face. "What are you doing up there?" He chattered, already wading through the sea of boxes. "You should've _seen _the mess me and Jiji made. His house is so cool! Let's come here everyday, okay? Right after school even. Hey, how about I just don't go to school and stay here instead?"

"Not happening." Hikaru answered, more by habit than anything else. She was still a little dazed by the fact that she was here, in the presence of Sai's Goban after all these years. …And no ghost in sight.

Sai seemed to have realized this would be her answer, and twittered onwards. "Oh, and we might need your help cleaning it up, by the way."

"Of course you do." She shook herself out of her reverie. "And who told you to climb all the way up here? You might hurt yourself!"

"You did it, didn't you?" Sai struggled onto a taller box, jumping onto the ladder. "Jiji said you used to come up here all the time."

"That was a long time ago." Hikaru agreed. "He didn't have nearly half the crap he has in here now."

"Crap? This stuff is gold!" Sai leapt up next to her, and Hikaru belatedly realized this perhaps may not have been the best idea, as to her growing horror his eyes were drawn immediately to the Goban by her side. "Hey! Is that a goban?"

The young boy immediately reached out to touch it, but was circumvented by Hikaru. "Don't touch it!" She scolded lightly. "That's a priceless artifiact!"

That, and she was a little worried that if _she _couldn't see the stains, _he _might. Perhaps seeing ghosts was genetic? Regardless, she wasn't about to find out.

Sai pouted. "But it's a goban! And it looks pretty nice, too. Say, do you think Jiji will let me take it home?"

"Doubtful." Replied Hikaru, dubious. "He'd never part with that thing even for his life."

.

.

.

But apparently he would.

Sai was all too delighted to hoist the enormous, and _expensive _(priceless, even) goban into his room, refusing to let anyone help him totter up the stairs to what was quickly turning into his bat cave, what with all the batman inspired action figures and bedsheets he had commandeered his father into getting him. Men and Bruce Wayne, she didn't understand.

Boys and gobans, she understood even less.

Hikaru would admit that she never personally would have touched one of those, had it not been for Sai. She'd never have encountered the illustrious, fascinating game and all its complexities, never would have gotten drawn into it—and to that end, never would have eventually left that world, to come to where she was now.

And though she held no ill-feelings towards the game she once devoted herself entirely to, there was something a little worrying about seeing Sai follow right down her footsteps.

_It was probably inevitable, _She consoled herself, as she began to make some tea. _After all, both his parents were obsessed with the game._

And then,

_And even _still _obsessed. _She amended.

The woman glanced at the clock, noting it was already almost five. And yet, the kitchen still was only half-unpacked, the living room almost completely untouched. Yeongha had, of course, come home and completely unearthed the flat screen TV, dvd player and his goban, and had curiously forgotten to do anything else. Hikaru scowled. Typical.

And if he dared to be late tonight, well, there would be hell to pay for that, too.

"Sai?" She called up the stairs.

"What?" Was the distant reply.

"I'm going to be leaving soon, okay?" She grabbed her tea, heading for her room to get changed. "You're grandparents are going to be coming over soon to watch you."

"Are you serious?" His voice—and high pitched whine—grew louder as she walked up the stairs. "Why can't Jiji just watch me?"

"You're 'Jiji' shouldn't really be walking around." Hikaru reminded. "And anyway, I don't know how I feel about letting him drive a car all the way over here…" He'd never been a particularly good driver, and now that he was growing a bit senile…

She paused at the entrance to his room, slightly surprised to already see he had set up his Goban and was halfway through some sort of recreation, but really shouldn't' have been.

"But Oji-san and Ojou-san don't play Go!" Sai pouted. "Not like Jiji does…"

Hikaru sighed, dropping down next to him. "Oh honey, not everyone plays Go… and just because they don't, doesn't mean they aren't fun. None of your friends in Korea played Go!"

"But they played pokemon." Sai argued, inanely. "And anyway, everyone who's really cool does. Otou-chan does, Noburo does, and even you do Okaa-chan!"

And then, at the thought, "Will you play with me?"

For a brief, startling moment, Hikaru contemplated it. Pondered on setting her tea aside, seating herself opposite of her son, and holding those stones after all these years. But it was a passing illusion, and she shook her head.

"Not right now bud." And then, with a rub to the head, "But what are you recreating right now?"

"The game me and Jiji were playing." Remarked Sai, offhandedly. He set another stone down. "We didn't get to finish though."

Hikaru blinked in surprise. He… had been able to remember it so easily? For his age, that was incredible. And to think, he'd only been playing the game these past couple days since they'd arrive. Sai had known the basics of course. It wasn't like Yeongha would let his only son grow up without it. But that he could already be progressing so quickly…

_He's a genius. _The woman thought, not really blindsided by the thought. It was karma, almost.

"That's nice." Said Hikaru, not really paying attention. And then, slowly, "Do you like it?"

"I love it!" Sai cried, grinning up at her. "I want to be an Insei, Okaa-chan. I want to play Go."

* * *

><p><em>This is not another wth oneshot, I swear. There is more to it somewhereee. I have SO MANY of these random ass hng fics that are so Au that the mary sue's said 'fuck you' and packed up and left.<em>

_ But at any rate, what do you think of these crazed plotlines? Should I continue to tweak them and update, or just leave them in the basement?_


	2. outdoors

So he hadn't forgotten after all.

"He wants to be an Insei." Hikaru moped in gloom, suddenly not feeling quite up to a fancy restaurant on their first night out in Japan.

Yeongha didn't seem surprised in the slightest. In fact, he was just this side of smug and looking like the cat who got the cream. "Of course he does!" The Korean laughed. "How could he not, when I'm his father, and you're his mother?"

"What do I have to do with this?" Hikaru retorted, crossing her arms. "You're the one who's so passionate about it."

"But you were the best Go player to ever have lived." Her husband remarked, seriously.

Hikaru cracked an eye open, face falling. "You know that's not true." And, after a moment, "And a complete overstatement."

"You'll still lie to me?" Yeongha replied, coolly, disregarding her latter comment. "Not only can I see it in your Go, but Hikaru, you named our only son Sai. How could I not know?"

"And like I've already told you," Began the woman, feeling as if they'd had this argument multiple times. Albeit the fact that they hadn't had it as frequently since her pregnancy, in which she adamantly refused to name her son anything but Sai, and also refused to explain _why. _"You've got it wrong."

"And yet you won't tell me what's 'right'." Yeongha surmised, leaning back in his chair. He idly played with the fold of his napkin.

Hikaru refused to say anything else.

"You're secrets are your own, I suppose." The Korean added after a lengthy amount of time. "Of course, since you don't care to enlighten me, that just means I'll have to come to conclusions of my own, right?"

Stubborn, she only sniffed.

He smiled. "I have a match with Ogata Juudan next week."

So soon? Her eyes raised. "Oh? That's soon."

Yeongha shrugged. "He asked."

The food came quickly after that. Hikaru wasn't the biggest fan of peking duck, but she picked idly at the dish regardless. Yeongha spoke rapidly to their waitress in Chinese, the woman giggling something in return and flouncing off. He always had a way with woman… it didn't help he was fluent in the language.

"So, will you come?"

She looked up from her rice. "To your match?" She reiterated hesitantly. "… Where is it?"

"The Go Institute."

Oh no…

He smiled again. "It'd be nice to have my wife supporting me."

She narrowed her eyes. He might always have a way with woman… but certainly not always with _her. _Sometimes, he could be transparent as glass. "I thought this wasn't an official match?"

"But a lot of people want to watch."

She sighed.

Of course they did.

"If this is about me playing again—don't even bother."

It didn't take a genius to know this whole thing was half a convoluted plot to get her back into it. In Korea, it was almost easy to ignore Go. Sure, Yeongha was a professional, but at first her attention was diverted towards finishing school, then her job, and then Sai came along… But now they were back in Japan, much of which she thought had to do with coaxing her back into Go. It was one of his dreams—for the two of them to play a match—and why come to Japan on a sabbatical? He was at the height of his career. People considered him one of the strongest of Korea, and the world at large.

There wasn't any logical reason.

"I can't just want my lovely, wonderful wife to watch me play the game I love?" He took her hand with a sweet smile.

Hikaru melted—a bit.

He really was rather charming.

"Alright, alright." And then, with a huff. "Of course I'll come." Even though the thought of the Go Institute—a place which had remained mostly submerged in her deeper memories—rose in her cautious trepidation.

"And bring Sai too?"

Hikaru snorted. "Right. Like Sai could sit still for that long."

.

.

.

"Are you kidding me?-!" Sai bounced up onto the couch. "Mom. _Mom. _I have to come. Dad's playing against Ogata-sensei! _Ogata Juudan! _That's so cool! Please can I come? Please? Please? Please?"

If there was one thing Sai excelled at—aside from being a mirror image of her loud, obnoxious and whining younger self—it was nagging her into submission.

Especially when there wasn't any real reason _not _to let him go.

"And you'll have all your homework done for school the next day?"

Sai rolled his eyes. "Of course!"

Hikaru frowned, pausing the TV. "And you'll behave? You know it's not like a soccer tournament, you can't just yell and cheer and—

"I _know _mom." Sai cut her off. "I've been to a Go match before!"

And then. "You _have_?" She turned around fully at that.

Sai settled himself onto the couch next to her, wrestling the remote out of her limp hands and switching the channel onto Animax. "Yeah, duh." He said like it was obvious. "Waya took me to one. His dad was playing some really important guy in a really important room—

"The Room of Darkness?" Her brows raised.

"In a really important tournament—"

"The _Tengen _tournament?"

"And we watched from the waiting room thing, I think. It was really cool. And we were really quiet! And afterwards, a lot of people came up to us and discussed the match with us—

"People?" She sat up straight, alarmed. "What kind of people? Did you introduce yourself?"

"… No?" Sai titled his head, eyes prying away from his anime to look at her, confused. "Why? Should I have?"

"_No._" Was her immediate answer, which she immediately regretted.

She wasn't trying to _hide _Sai… was she? That certainly wasn't fair to him. Personal feelings aside, if Sai wanted to become a professional Go Player—even if he was much too young—as a parent she shouldn't deter him. There were a plethora of worse things he could endeavor in.

And of course people were going to ask questions. She named him _Sai, _after all. And her untimely leave from the Go World, coupled with SAI's disappearance from the internet only set further rumors ablaze. It wasn't exactly the most difficult connection to make. That being said, it was somewhat inevitable that this day would come.

She heaved a great sigh, flopping back into the couch. "You can come, Sai." She said, defeated.

He whooped enthusiastically.

"Why don't you bring Waya-chan or something with you?"

"Noboru?" Sai paused. "Hey, that's a good idea!" And then, fiddling with the remote, "Actually, I'm gonna call him right now! Can I invite some friends over?"

She shrugged. "Why not."

They had finally managed to get the house in order—what was it if a couple mangy kids destroyed the place in under an hour? She almost felt a little sorry for their yard—by the end of the day it would be destroyed with soccer balls and mud fights and whatever other messy concoctions Sai could come up with.

Suffice to say she was rather surprised when, in the middle of Grey's Anatomy, a solemn procession of bobbling heads trudged up the stairs to Sai's room, shut the door, and remained _soundless _for the majority of the afternoon.

Finally, around eight, Hikaru paused in cooking dinner to listen intently upstairs. The silence was rather unnerving—did they all escape out a window or something? Or worse, make up some kind of swimming game and drowned in the bathtub—

However, when she swung the bedroom door open, she was met with a small handful of kids kneeling around a Go board, playing Go (or watching) in staunchy silence.

Sai looked up at the sudden intrusion, startled into dropping his stone. "Mom!"

At this, all the other kids jumped too.

She blinked, stunned.

"What are you doing?" Sai pouted, looking somewhat embarrassed and annoyed. "We're in the middle of the game!"

She leaned against the doorway, still surprised. "Huh. I was just making sure you weren't dead."

"Why would I be dead?-!" Sai harrumphed.

"Is this your mom, Shindou-chan?" One of the girls asked.

Sai blushed, looking coy and slightly boastful. "Yeah! Isn't she pretty?"

There was a lengthy chorus of polite and bashful greetings from the group of munchkins on the floor, most of which Hikaru wasn't sure what to make of. Waya-chan, at least, looked kind of familiar. He resembled Waya a lot, anyway, and it wasn't hard to see the resemblance.

"Are these your friends, Sai-chan?" Hikaru looked down.

Sai brightened. "Yep! This is Waya," He motioned to the redhead with a floppy, puppy cut. "And over here is Miyumi-chan and Rui-chan," Were the two almost identical looking little girls, "And this is Isumi." He pointed to the boy he was playing with.

"Isumi?" She echoed. Huh… There was something of a resemblance.

"They're coming with me to watch the game tomorrow!" Sai crowed happily.

Hikaru palmed her face. She said Waya-kun… not a small collection of under ten children! How unfortunate that being a parent meant free babysitting.

She sighed.

_This is starting to sound less and less like a good idea…_


	3. split

.

.

.

Her apprehension was only further realized when it struck her that she would be the one to coral this group of kids from one part of town to the other—one child was daunting enough, let alone five. Well, small blessings and such; all the kids excluding Sai were mostly mild-mannered and shy, and weren't that much of a bother. To that end, she'd almost lost Isumi twice because the kid was so goddamn quiet.

The game Yeongha had said would start around three would at this point be well into an hour's worth of play—and Hikaru was no closer to the Institute than she was twenty minutes ago. Sai took one look at an ice cream shop and insisted they all stop because, "The Go Institute is like jail, you can't get out until it's over." And had startled such a laugh out of the woman that she agreed just out of good mirth.

She regretted the choice now, though, when faced with five sticky, sugar-high children.

"Mom, mom," Sai tugged at her hand, half his face smeared with mint ice cream as he pulled her down the street. "Come on! We're gonna miss it!"

"We've already missed most of it." Hikaru rolled her eyes, but benignly followed his lead. She chanced a quick look behind to make sure all the ducklings were lined up properly after her. She snorted; none of_ them_ had made such a mess of their food.

But, Sai had always been the most hyperactive child she'd ever known, and it was one of the qualities she secretly enjoyed about him. Yeongha could be so studious and introverted, and so could she. There were days when the both of them were moody and silent, too edgy to say much more than obligatory responses. Sai was there opposite; if there was ever a day he wasn't his jovial, buoyant self she'd first conclude he'd been taken over by a pod person before she actually believed he was in a mood.

It was also half the reason she was so skeptical about his sudden intensity over Go. Sai worked off most of his energy—or as much as he could with an infinite supply—outside, through soccer or baseball or through impressively imaginative games with his friends. She hadn't thought him capable of sitting still for that long; still didn't, honestly.

Either way, this match would be a learning experience.

Sai barreled right into the Go Institute with little dramatic fanfare but a hell of a lot of noise, looking around and making impressed faces, bouncing on the balls of his toes. Hikaru followed, subdued, not entirely surprised when Noboru pushed past her to join Sai in his blatant excitement. She turned back around; Isumi looked the picture of serene, and the two little girls hid their expressions behind their ice cream cones.

Her son tore off his shoes in a hurry, shifting his weight and motioning erratically for her to move faster. "Dad, dad, dad!" He chanted, glancing around, manic. Not for the first time Hikaru wondered if he was on speed, or just naturally born with a supply of amphetamines tweaking him out when he became overly emotional.

She brought a finger to her lips. "You have to be quiet, remember?" And then, wryly, "You've been here before, right? Were you this loud then?"

"No." Noboru answered for him. "But he wasn't this excited then, either." If anything, Sai's little friend looked surprised with this much energy. Hikaru was a little blindsided on how that was possible, considering how much time the two spent together.

Sai continued to look around. "Where's he playing? Do you know mom?"

"In the lounge, I believe." She replied, putting her shoes away. She looked up quickly when she heard the pattering of his feet as he scampered away.

"Sai!" She called after him, as loudly as she dared, following him around the corner and cursing herself for not being one of those parents who had their kid on a backpack leash, "I'm going to haul you back home if you can't behave prop—

And this was how the first encounter between Touya and Sai began.

.

.

.

In hindsight, she should have seen this coming.

Touya hadn't changed much, maybe his hair was a little shorter or something, and maybe he'd grown a bit taller—or a lot taller—but aside from that he was still easily recognizable as the boy from her youth.

Staring down in bewilderment at her son.

Who, only stared back, nonplussed.

Hikaru was going to assume that Sai'd bumped into him somehow, because there was really no other reason for them to be at such a stand still, making Hikaru lose years off her life in shock.

To that end though, she wasn't the only one.

It was only a matter of time before Touya's eyes moved from his stare down with Sai to her, and she wouldn't kid herself, she hadn't changed _that _much either.

"…Shindou…" He breathed, and there was _so _much she could do to that.

So much she wanted to. Some of her wanted to sit down and, and explain or something, but the rest wanted to scoop Sai up and walk right back out. She didn't: this wasn't a situation she'd ever wanted to deal with, hadn't quite resigned herself to inevitability of it.

"Touya…" She swallowed, suddenly overcome with such bereft emotion she couldn't say much else. "It's good to see you."

"You too." Touya responded, out of formality mostly, it seemed. He wore the most bewildered look to his face; expressions traversing between his eyes faster than she could recognize.

Sai tugged insistently at her sleeve. "Mom, Mom, Mom," He chanted, waving a finger in Touya's direction. "Is that Touya 9-Dan?"

She blinked, looking furiously between them two. "Um," Hikaru sputtered, attempted to regain composure. How, exactly, did Sai know of Touya? "Why yes, yes it is. But please, for the love of _god _Sai—how many times have I told you not to point at people?"

"But _Mom!" _He whined, like that even meant anything.

She took a deep breath, pulled out a calm countenance from what seemed like thin air and managed to mask her face into benign indifference. "Touya-kun," She addressed, making the boy—well, _man_ now, she supposed—jolt in surprise. "This is my son, Sai."

And then, crouching down to Sai's height, "Sai-chan, this _is_ Touya 9-Dan, but it's very rude to point and not introduce yourself, so you should say sorry."

"Right. Sorry." Sai agreed, somewhat chastened. He immediately turned back to Touya with a winsome grin. "Hi! I'm Sai! It's really nice to meet you! Mom said I could come and watch dad play if I was really good and stayed quiet—but I'm kinda bad at doing both of those. She even let me bring some friends! Hey! Where's Noboru-kun?"

He stuck his head around the corner and, as loudly as possible, shouted down the hall, "Noboru-kun! Doesn't your dad play Go with Touya-san?"

And then, whirling around to speak to Touya again. "Noboru's dad is Waya 9-Dan—do you play with him?"

"I do." Touya answered, still looking quite lost.

"Sai!" Hikaru hissed. "What have I told you about keeping your voice down?"

"Oh." Sai's face fell. "Right."

Hikaru sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Why was it so difficult to stay mad at him for more than thirty seconds? You'd think she'd be used to his puppy eyes at this point. She shook her head, and reached out to rub at a spot of ice cream right beside his nose. Sometime in the interim his little friends had scampered up behind him, waiting curiously—and quietly, much to her fortune—and peering over his shoulder towards the room in front of him with vague interest.

"So can we go see dad now?" Sai whisper-asked, already perking up again.

"No, of course not." Hikaru rolled her eyes. "We just came all this way for nothing."

One of the girls (she couldn't tell which was which) giggled into her hands. "Your mom's real funny." The other one whispered to Sai. Sai only beamed up at her like she hung the moon or something—completely missing, or possibly ignoring, her sarcasm.

"_Dad_!" And then he was at full volume again, jetting down the hall. Hikaru felt the beginnings of a migraine creeping into the back of her head.

At least the other kids were being good.

She turned back towards Touya, who wore an indecipherable expression as he stared her down. Isumi tugged impatiently at her hand, making to follow Sai.

"It was good to see you." She offered, meekly, totally allowing herself to be dragged off by the crowd of children with her into the other room. She'd much rather lose her free will to a gaggle of small children than stand awkwardly in this room, making small talk to Touya.

She pretended she couldn't feel his eyes follow her all the way down.

.

.

.

"—_so _cool—"

"Why do you think Ogata-Juudan let him move—

"Because he didn't _know, _stupid—

"I'm not stupid!—

Hikaru sighed, moving to fix herself another cup of tea. If she had known just how much of a riot these kids would cause, she undoubtedly would have kept them all at home.

"Shindou," Touya swallowed, but there was that determined look to his face—and it was alarming how well Hikaru remembered it—that meant he wouldn't be deterred. "Can we talk?"

She sighed. "Sure." And then, turning back to her gamma ball of energy. "Sai, you behave, alright?" And then, just for safe measure, "Rui-chan, because you're the most behaved out of all your foolish friends, you're going to be in charge, okay?"

The girl lit up like Hikaru had just told her she was secretly Santa Claus. "Yes! Yes! I'll do my best!"

"Good." Hikaru nodded seriously, moving to stand. "And if any of them do something they're not supposed to, you tell me okay? Because if they misbehave I won't buy them any candy from the vending machine."

"Okay!" She nodded back, so serious it was a little adorable, while both Sai and Noboru cried out indignantly.

Hikaru smiled briefly at her dedication, before turning her attention towards Touya, who was already half way out the door.

The interior of the hallway was deathly silent, not even an air conditioner or a lawnmower outside to break the silence. Hikaru didn't think she'd ever been a place so quiet, and it made everything about this situation worse. Touya turned to her once they were sufficiently far away from the door, and now, without any distractions, it was obvious to see all the similarities he shared with the boy from her youth.

"9-Dan, huh?" She smiled, weakly.

"There was a title or two somewhere in there." He replied, and for the life of her she couldn't tell whether he was making a joke or not.

"You don't play Go anymore." He continued onwards. A statement, not a question.

"No." She agreed softly.

And finally, some sort of emotion. His brow knitted together, something like frustration catching in his eyes.

"His name is Sai." Another statement.

"It is." She said, if only because there was nothing else to say. No explanation was forthcoming. She hadn't even told her husband why she named their firstborn that name.

"You aren't Sai." He stated. "You were never Sai."

She swallowed. Of course Touya would come the closest. He had always been the one, the only one, to ever see right through her to all she had to hide. He'd seen Sai, had always seen him, had chased him even when he didn't know _what _he was chasing. Her stomach flipped over. Touya is the only other person on this planet who has even an inkling of Sai, and it makes something hard lodge in her throat and long dead memories arise in the back of her mind.

"I wasn't." She whispered.

"But that can't be right," He said, almost to himself. "You—the timing is… " He took a step closer, and it was so strange seeing his eyes; they hadn't changed at all. Not the color, the expression, the determination.

"You _have _to be Sai." He amended. "I've never forgotten the first game you played against me. No game has ever come close to that, not in all the years I've played Go."

He took another step. She wanted to widen the distance again, but her feet wouldn't move.

"And the game after. That was Sai."

Another step.

"And the tournament. I'd never thought about it until after you'd left—I thought you were messing around in the middle of the game. But you hadn't been, had you? You would have never done that in the middle of a match."

"And then you _stopped._" That frustrated crease came between his eyes again. Hikaru was starting to think that maybe that was his look of consternation for _her. _It probably wasn't too far off the mark—over the years she and all her mysteries probably caused quite the headache for the young prodigy.

"You started playing differently, and you wouldn't—" He made a frustrated noise. "Why?"

"Are you—who _is _Sai?"

"…Touya…" She swallowed.

"Hikaru," The familiar voice made her flinch back, a wide gap between them once more. "What's this Sai's telling me about you buying him all the candy in the vending machine—

"Touya-san." Yeongha greeted as he finally rounded the corner, expression alarmingly unreadable.

Touya dipped his head. "Yeongha-san."

There was a terrifying moment where neither of them said anything, only staring at her on a level way over her head. As in literally, over her head (she didn't know whether to curse her shortness or curse their height) and Hikaru couldn't think of anything to fill the silence, anything at all—

"I most certainly did not." She finally grappled with, steadying her shaking voice. "I said I'd buy _them _candy, and only if they behaved, which clearly they did _not_."

And finally, _finally _Yeongha tore his gaze away from the 9-dan, focusing on her. "Well, you better tell him that." And then, ominously, "Before he tears down all the walls in this building."

Like clockwork, she could hear the pitter-patter of little feet at alarming speeds, and her young son rounded the corner and barreled into the back of his father's knees.

"That was _so cool_!" He enthused, beaming up at Yeongha. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

Yeongha snorted. "Maybe in a couple decades."

Sai pouted. "Oh. Well then could you buy me candy?"

"That, I'll do in a couple _centuries_."

"No fair!" He whined. "Mom said—

"Don't try to pull that on me, your mother said if you were _good, _and I distinctly remember you trying to wrestle Noboru-kun in the middle of the match and almost knocking a table over!"

"He started it!" Sai cried in defense.

Yeongha bent down to ruffle his hair. "I don't care. But I'll buy you a soda. I can only pray that the sugar content is marginally less than candy."

Sai cheered at that, bolting down the hallway. Yeongha moved to follow him, catching Hikaru's gaze with a look that she couldn't decipher.

The hallway quieted again with them gone, and she raised her eyes to Touya's. His expression… was just as unreadable as Yeongha's.

"You should probably go with them." Touya said, stiffly.

And then, with what looked like supreme effort, a tiny smile graced his face. "Before he knocks over another table."

"Yeah." Hikaru groaned. "Yeah you're right."

She turned to follow her family, pausing only to hesitantly throw over her shoulder, "I'll see you around." Before running the hell out of there. If Touya said anything in response, she didn't catch it over the rushing of her own blood.

.

.

.

"Was I interrupting something back there?" Yeongha asked coolly, moving around the kitchen to pour himself another glass of wine.

HIkaru looked sullenly at hers, absentmindedly rubbing her finger against the glass. Above her, she could hear Sai's scampering feet as he ran around his bedroom. What the hell he was running for, she'd never know.

"Not at all." She blinked out of her reverie, suddenly remembering Yeongha had asked a question. If she hadn't been so distracted, she would have noticed the edge in his voice.

"Really?" He set the bottle back down on the counter, but made no move to come back to the table. "It looked important."

She shrugged. "We were just catching up. It's… been a while."

"I'll say." He still hadn't turned around. "You and Touya knew each other right?"

"Yeah." She bit her lip. That was one way of putting it.

"Well?"

"I suppose."

"Were you friends?" And then, "Or more than that?"

"We—" She paused, blinking, and looked up. "What are you—?"

Hikaru frowned. "You've got it all wrong."

And he did, not that there was much evidence to the contrary.

Her relationship with Touya wasn't like that—had _never _been like that—they pushed at each other and pulled and made each other better; they were rivals. There was an inexplicable bond between them that wasn't romantic or particularly platonic—she'd call them enemies before she called them friends—but it lingered there all the same. And so, so _integral _to the both of them that she can't imagine what he thought when she left, when she'd just disappeared.

It wasn't attraction that rose within her at the thought of Touya, no. Guilt maybe, and an overwhelming urge to make things right, but nothing amorous. She wronged him, really—he'd spent so much of his young life chasing after her, getting chased by her, the two of them wrapped around each other inspiring and motivating one another as much as they discouraged and pushed each other away—and losing that, she knew, destroyed him. She'd seen it in his face when he marched into the library, insisting with that fervor of his, demanding to now _why. _And she'd seen it in the scores after, when she finally got the courage to look, seeing his tumultuous play for months afterwards.

He, above everyone else, deserved an explanation.

Not even Yeongha—although she did name his first born son Sai without a word as to why—had as much of a right, had given and received so much from Sai, without an answer.

"Do I?" He retorted, acerbically. "Because what I've got is you two in a hallway with him looking like he wanted to _eat _you—

"Are you really being serious?" Hikaru blinked. But really, she was genuinely shocked. They had never been much of a jealous couple—Yeongha in particular. Her mind conjured up a particular moment in her last year of undergrad when she'd completely ditched him at a bar to talk to a random stranger about hockey teams—for two hours. Yeongha hadn't even minded, not even when she avidly exchanged numbers with the foreigner and promised to talk about which teams she was following. He'd always had complete, unwavering faith in her loyalty and in return she'd never questioned his.

So why…?

"Are you jealous?" She balked. But that was a rhetorical question; everything in his expression was saying _yes._

"You don't think I have reason to be?" He replied, stony. "All I know of your time in Japan is littered with Touya—and all of which, by the way, I have never actually heard from _you_. What am I supposed to think, when I truly know nothing about your life before you moved to Korea and all that I do know is that this boy has to do with both the reason you picked up a Go stone and the reason you stopped! You ran from Go and you ran from him—all the way to Korea, and you don't do that unless there's _something _there so I'm not going to ask you again; is there something between you two?"

"No!" She shouted back, immediately. "No, of course not! God I was barely thirteen when I left, how could there have ever been—? And you're wrong, it's not because of Touya that I started playing Go, he had nothing to do with it!"

"He had to have something to do with it—or at least, he had to be part of the reason you played! The guy wrote your parents letters for months after you left; don't think I don't know about that—

"It's not about him! Okay? It's never been about him." She was breathing hard, and she wasn't really sure why. She and Yeongha had never argued like this, she realized, belatedly. They never really argued, now that she thought about it. In the silence after her outburst, Yeongha's expression turned thoughtful. She didn't like the look of it; turning away to stare sullenly out the window.

He spoke, after she'd stared long enough to watch birds roost in the tree outside.

"It was Sai, wasn't it?"

She didn't answer for some time, pressing the heel of her hand to her head, closing her eyes. Finally, after an eternity, "Can we please just not talk about this?"

"Are we _ever_ going to talk about it?"

"I…" She swallowed. "I don't know."

She scrunched her hand against her forehead, willing the tears not to fall. Her heart was in her throat and this was the most unimaginably terrible day she'd ever had—and she knew it had been coming, too. Of course she knew; she knew the moment Yeongha had announced he wanted to take a Sabbatical in Japan, she knew when they touched down in Tokyo, when she was unpacking the boxes and when her heart constricted when she saw her son inspecting an ancient Goban—

Strong arms moved to encircle her shoulders, a cheek resting against her head.

"I didn't mean to make you upset." He whispered into her hair.

"You didn't." She sniffled. Lies. He totally did.

"And I'm sorry. But you do understand where I'm coming from, right? It's… not easy knowing there's so many secrets to you that you won't tell me."

"I know." She sighed.

He hugged her tighter, and they stayed like that for some time, until she finally felt comfortable enough to pull her hands away from her face and Yeongha led her back to their bedroom. She'd never been more relieved to see it; a tangible reminder of her modern life. Her work macbook on the table by the windows, all the paperwork for her Japanese taxes and the transfer papers to her work's Tokyo office scattered around the remaining table space and even on the chairs. There was a picture on her nightstand of all of them—taken on a sunny day in Seoul—not even a good one, really: she looked miserable and cross in the photo and Sai looked infinitely _more _miserable and cross, dressed up in a monkey outfit because Yeongha had thought it was the funniest thing and the man himself was wearing a really unfortunate Red Sox hat and an unsightly pair of sunglasses.

But… they were happy. This was her life now, and she was really, really happy with it. Her life wasn't about ghosts and Go anymore; she had moved on.

She lifted up the photo, a smiling touching her face.

Now, if only the rest of the world would, too.

.

.

.

The problem was; she had gotten closure. It had taken years, but finally she had come to terms with the fact that Sai had left just as quickly as he had came, effectively making just as much of a shitshow out of her life as he had when he had arrived. But, they say experiences make you who you are, and she had no idea what she'd be without Sai—a stupid girl, probably, with no aspirations or determination.

She had gotten closure.

But the rest of the world hadn't.


	4. waltz

The problem was; she had gotten closure. It had taken years, but finally she had come to terms with the fact that Sai had left just as quickly as he had came, effectively making just as much of a shitshow out of her life as he had when he had arrived. But, they say experiences make you who you are, and she had no idea what she'd be without Sai—a stupid girl, probably, with no aspirations or determination.

She had gotten closure.

But the rest of the world hadn't.

.

.

.

_Being 18 and pregnant sucked. She couldn't even remember one moment in which she thought it hadn't. It was one thing to be fooling around with a professional Go player—which all her friends at SNU thought was hilarious but also a little strange—and another to be, like, stuck with him for life. _

_Like, they might not have to get married, but they'd be forever tied in a constant battle for child support regardless. _

_Her friends thought she was crazy. If her parents knew, they'd also think she was crazy—and probably disown her. Yeongha thought she was fucking crazy; hell, even she thought she had completely lost her mind. _

_She was a marketing major, and a damn good one at that, and everyone said she was great and there were only great things for her, and how great she was because she was a girl pursuing a career and she was so driven and—and how not great her circumstances were now. She had everything going for her and it wouldn't be difficult at all to get herself out of this situation; well, not with a couple hundred wons, at any rate. And while her internship income probably wouldn't really give her much leeway with that, Yeongha was more than willing to provide the funds. _

"_I'm not trying to—to, make your decision for you, okay?" He held both hands up, placating, watching her pace from his spot on her couch with something like terrified eyes. _

_She made a noncommittal noise, and he took it as a sign to continue._

"_I just, I'm trying to understand your motivations?" His eyes trailed after her as she paused in front of the windows, back turned to him. "You go to the best school in Korea, you have a job most people in this city would give their left arm for, and you're young, so… why?"_

"_I'm not changing my mind." She retorted stubbornly, still not turning to look at him._

"_I'm not asking you." He reminded, quickly. "I just want to understand you. So… if you would please at least talk to me about it—I mean, I might not have had the best reaction earlier, but you did call me, told me you were pregnant, and then hung up immediately after. I'm not sure what you were expecting with that."_

_She harrumphed, still not facing him._

_To be frankly honest, she hadn't known either. _

_But she'd thought it was at least the right thing to do, informing him and all that, and she'd only hung up so quickly because she hadn't wanted him to think she was trying to corner him into something; he was nineteen, after all. And like most people their age, babies were a distant speckle in their long future, far after all the clubbing and alcohol. Or in Yeongha's case, travelling and a lot of Go. And she might be crazy, but she was sane enough to at least emphasize with that._

_The real problem was; even she didn't know why she was going through with this._

_She'd been at the doctor's earlier that week, and it would've been all too easy to schedule an abortion while she was over there, but something about the whole process had made her pause. The ultrasound was really more invasive than it was eye opening, until the nurse had turned to her afterwards and told her it was a boy._

_And that, also, wouldn't have been much of a game changer, had it not hit her like lightning—_

_Sai._

_That would be his name. She'd agreed conclusively to herself—in the abstract—that if she ever had a boy that would be his name. And this was the boy. This was Sai. She was staring at him, in that tiny oblong shaped monochrome screen. _

_She bit her lip, staring out at the looming buildings of Seoul. Even in her head, it didn't make sense, so how in the hell was she supposed to convey this all to Yeongha? That being said, he was being really, weirdly…. Good with all of this. She didn't know what she had been expecting: but it hadn't been his soft face when she opened the door, his quiet, introspective demeanor as he made himself comfortable in her flat. _

_She swallowed._

_She couldn't not tell him._

"…_Sai." She whispered._

_He blinked, completely unable to hear her from across the room. "I'm sorry?"_

"_Sai." She said, louder, turning to him. "That's gonna be his name. Sai."_

_._

.

.

"But _mom_!"

"I don't care." Hikaru replied snippily, reaching right over and grabbing his Gameboy, shutting it off with righteous finality.

"I was on the last champion!" He gasped, scandalized. "I didn't save!"

"Well, too bad. You can start over when you get it back—and I still haven't decided on when that will be. Maybe in a month, after that spectacularly bad behavior."

"But I didn't _mean_ to be—

"Sai." She cut him off, flatly. "I know you are more than capable of sitting quietly in a room to watch Go. In fact, you've told me so before. So there really isn't an excuse for this."

He pouted outrageously at that, crossing his arms and poking out his lower lip. He looked like the cutest thing in the world, but she only sniffed and turned her head away. That wasn't going to work on her today.

She spied something in the corner… "Really, I should take that away." She jammed a thumb in the direction of the Goban on the floor.

If possible, Sai looked even more scandalized, jumping to his feet at that. "No!" He whined, grabbing her shirt and looking up at her with pleading eyes. "No, please no!"

Hikaru blinked, a little taken aback by the reaction. Up until now she was fairly sure there was nothing Sai cared about more in life than his pokemon—it was strange to see something else take precedence.

Strange… and a little worrying.

"It was strange," Hikaru recounted, much later, as she set the Gameboy in her nightstand. "He was more worried about me taking away his Goban than his Gameboy. Can you believe that?"

"Hmmm…" Yeongha said in reply, though he could have been '_hmm_'-ing at the Go magazine he was reading.

"You're not even listening to me." She rolled her eyes, flouncing onto the bed.

Yeongha looked… hilariously old like that, peering down at a magazine in bed, lamp on. It was easy to forget that they really weren't that old—not with a six year old running around, terrorizing everything from the furniture to the neighborhood cats—that they were still at a perfectly acceptable age to go out and get outrageously drunk, sleep around with every boy and girl, forget to pay rent, get in car accidents, and not care about what school district they were moving into or what kind of 401K plan they had.

By anyone's standards, they were still kids themselves.

And yet, she wouldn't trade Sai for the world. He was a right terror, but he was _hers._

Although, he could do with a sibling, she supposed. She could see him getting fairly spoiled as a boisterous, only child. Maybe a younger sibling would also calm his temperament some—or at least teach him some responsibility. She wouldn't lie and say she hadn't given it some thought; there'd been a day when Sai was three and just starting preschool and she'd thought how wonderful it would be to have someone close in age to Sai, someone he could walk to school with and play games with. She scowled. But it was easy to forget in hindsight all of the changing of diapers and ear infections and _crying_. And what would she even name it? Aside from Sai, she had no other real preference.

She blinked.

But wait a minute…

"Hey, if we had another one, would you have any preference on names?"

Yeongha blinked, puzzled and completely befuddled by this arbitrary start to a conversation. "I… no?"

He hadn't even thought about other kids? To be honest, one was more than enough for right now. Wait. He blinked again. Where was this coming from? Why was Hikaru thinking on this? Had she been thinking on this… for a while? Was this question really out of the blue, or had she been planning this all along? Did _she _want more kids?

"Oh." Hikaru said, like she hadn't just turned his universe upside down. "Cool." And she settled into his side, poking away at her phone.

He stared down incredulously at her. "Cool? That's all you have to say? _Cool_?"

She didn't say anything, and Yeongha scowled angrily when he noticed her entire attention devoted to instagram, and swiped the phone out of her hands.

"_Hey_!" She protested. "Akari posted more pictures from her vacation in Australia!"

"I don't care about Akari's vacation to Timbuktu or wherever the fuck it is—" He narrowed his eyes. "What's this all about? Where is this coming from?"

She gaped at him. "Where—what? No, it's not coming from anywhere! I just had a random thought."

"Really." He deadpanned, not quite ready to believe that.

"Really." She deadpanned back, and strategically moved in for a kiss, deftly plucking her phone out of his hands as she did so. "It just, I dunno, struck me right now, that if we had another one, I'd know what I'd want to name him."

"You're assuming it will be a him." He pointed out, wry.

"Like I said," She shrugged, moving back to snuggle into his side. "It was just a thought; I hadn't like, made a contingency plan or anything."

He sighed in relief, his universe inverted right side up once more. Well, if they were just talking hypothetical, he was okay with that.

"Oh." He sank back down onto the pillow. "And what was the name?"

"Torajiro." She said, matter of factly. "Oh! But Torami, for a girl, I guess?" She shriveled her nose. "Not really a fan of that, though."

"Torajiro." He echoed slowly. Another Japanese name. He shrugged mentally. It wasn't like he had any real preference either way. He paused suddenly, turning to scrutinize the blonde; this surety, this blatant certainty with the name reminded him of a similar time…

"Why that name?" He asked; the question he wished he'd had the courage to ask all those years ago. Maybe, if he had asked at that moment, he would have actually gotten an answer.

Hikaru blinked, as if contemplating her answer. "Honinbo Shusaku's name was Torajiro." She said, finally.

He didn't know what to say to that. Eventually, after moments of stunned silence, he managed to piece together all the tumultuous thoughts in his head. "You claim to not like Go—you say it doesn't mean anything to you. And yet, the last time I asked you for a game and we sat down to play you _cried. _You named our son Sai and refused to tell me why, even though I know it's related to the internet player—and by extention, to _you_. And now you're telling me you want to name our hypothetical next child after Honinbo Shusaku?"

She met his incredulous face head on, not giving an inch.

He didn't give an inch either—well, not for a few good minutes, until eventually he sighed. She was just… so fucking stubborn. She usually wasn't, not about most things; but with Go, with Go and whatever connection it had to her, she could probably go through a KGB interrogation and come out without saying a word.

"What does it matter?" She scowled, being an obstinate little fuck. He didn't know why he found it so endearing.

"It seems to be a running theme in your life." He pointed out, wryly. "You make it out like you don't care at all about Go… but clearly you're not fooling anyone; including yourself."

He expected that to make the situation worse; he'd quickly come to realize that the only way to diffuse the situation after the subject of her and Go came up was to let it drop and change to something else. After an hour or two, she'd usually shake it off and go back to normal. So baiting her out like that…may not have been his wisest decision. If he didn't want to get kicked out onto the couch, that is.

So, he was more than a little surprised when she continued to frown at him, but bit out, "He's my favorite."

Wait. What? "…Seriously?" But that was a rhetorical question. It was clear from everything about her posture that she was very, very serious.

He supposed she could have chosen worse. "Well, you do favor his Kosumi." So it really wasn't that surprising that he'd be her favorite player.

"How would you know?" She retorted childishly, still pouting on the other side of the bed, looking remarkably like Sai. Well, that would make sense; he probably inherited it from her.

He rolled over lazily to face her, propping his head on a hand. "I've seen your kifu." He replied nonchalantly, like it hadn't taken ages for him to track that shit down.

"Oh." There was a moment when the stunned surprise took over her face, ousting all the stubbornness. "…Really?" She asked, voice brittle and vulnerable. The sight startled him—it was… highly unusual given the circumstances. Normally a stone wall would have erected between them at this point, and an impassive, unreadable mask would slide onto her face and forever obscure whatever thoughts she may have on Go. But this was new. He thought, maybe, he was getting somewhere with this.

"Of course." Yeongha answered, his eyes soft but his voice full of conviction. "I meant what I said; I always want to play you. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance… but I'll wait for it."

Her defense crumbled at that, and she sighed—in resignation, not anger. "You… might be waiting a long time on that one." And she even smiled at him, weakly.

He almost wanted to prod some more, hoping that maybe he'd finally get some answers out of her when her defenses were down. But something about that made him feel uneasy… he wanted her to tell him on her own terms, not because he'd finally managed to weasel it out of her when she was upset.

Instead, he reached over and grabbed her hand.

"I'll always wait." Which sounded stupid and sappy even to him, but totally worked because she broke into a frighteningly beautiful smile at that.

And then, as an afterthought he added, "As long as you don't cry again. That's really not good for my self esteem."

She choked out a laugh. "Yeah, okay."

"What brought this on, anyway?" He decided that maybe a tactful change in subject was best; this may have been something of a productive argument on Go, but he didn't want to take his chances. "There had to be something. You couldn't have just… had a random flash of inspiration."

She grinned sheepishly. Hah. Caught. "Well, it's just, Sai's getting so old, y'know?"

No, he didn't know. Sai was six, he was just a kid. If anything, he wasn't getting older fast enough.

"I mean, they won't even go to the same school!" She whined, mostly to the ceiling. "They'll be too far apart!"

"Isn't that a good thing?" He asked, puzzled. Who would want to pay two college tuitions at the same time? He was struck by how strange it was to think of them paying for college when Hikaru had only just gotten out of it.

"It's the principle of the thing." She retorted. "And, I dunno, I don't want them to be _too _far in age. I've always wanted a sibling my age to play with—and I want Sai to have that."

"Well, if that's the case we're running out of time." He noted, and then suddenly felt like he may be cottoning onto something. "We'd have to—" And then, with a startling epiphany. "Start… planning that."

Hikaru looked at him, a little hopefully. "...Yes?"

He gave it some thought. Just ten minutes ago it sounded like the end of the world. But, after giving it a couple minutes to settle in… it didn't sound all that bad. Hell, nothing could be worse than what they went through with Sai. Just imagining those months made him shudder. That being said, they were in a better place now—Hikaru wasn't a student, he wasn't a young pro constantly travelling, and while they still may be young they weren't woefully ill-equipped parents any longer. Also, as a plus, his inlaws finally seemed to accept his existence.

"Well," He said at length. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to… not, _not_ try?" Did that make sense? It had made more sense in his head.

Apparently it did, because Hikaru gave him a leer.

"We should get on that."

"Yeah." He agreed, tugging her over and suddenly deciding this might not be the worst idea ever. "We really, really should."

.

.

.

_Hikaru's voice was soft and just this shy of not quiet enough, muffled through the walls but still audible if he tried to listen in hard enough. Which he didn't. Because he imagined that whatever conversation was going on he would prefer to never know how it went down. He knew what it was about, though, so he could imagine what a spectacular shitshow it must be. _

_He threw a hand over his eyes, feeling wired and like he hadn't slept for the better part of the week (which might not be an entire exaggeration)._

_It'd been a couple days, but it felt like just a few moments ago that Hikaru had turned around and said, "Sai." _

_Like that didn't completely upend everything he knew about her._

_Sure, he knew she played Go. He even knew that, technically, she was a Shodan. It was an interesting little fun fact when he'd met her, something intriguing and different, but sort of like a discarded memory in the wind storm of her life. An arbitrary status, like finding out she was secretly ordained as a minister or something like that. They didn't talk about it much, aside from when she mentioned it in the first place and a few times after that when she watched him play Go—and from how offhandedly she'd remarked upon it he had assumed the game didn't mean much to her._

_Clearly he was very, very wrong._

_Of course he knew who Sai was. He doubted there was any professional player who didn't. Sai was the moniker for an internet phenomena—the more elaborate tales say he was a poltergeist of Honinbo Shusaku in the computer playing from the grave. Most people believed he was just an astounding amateur, perhaps someone who never had the opportunity to play professionally, who had tried his hand at internet Go. _

_There were rumors that he was actually an old man who had passed away, which would certainly explain how he had crafted his play. But, and these were the ones Yeongha was more inclined to, there were always the theories that Sai was actually young, someone still in school—the timing of his games all matched up to school hours. And he'd started playing more and more during summer, when school was let out. _

_But Yeongha had never put much stock in that; he was probably just projecting what he wanted to be reality. It would only be too convenient for there to be another Go master his age to challenge him. _

_And, like most of his constituents, the fervor to find out the identity of Sai died down after so many years of silence from the account, and all that was left were the abrupt ruminations he had at times, when he'd see a play or two that reminded him of something he'd seen in Sai's kifu. _

_Maybe he hadn't been projecting at all._

_He shook his head._

_That wasn't true; there was still the possibility that Hikaru wanting to name her son Sai was just a strange stroke of coincidence. But Yeongha had never believed in coincidences: and he also may have looked her up at the Japan Go Institute's office. It'd taken him ages to wrestle them into faxing him some copies, and quite a bit of name dropping, but by the end of the afternoon he'd gotten them. They had quite a few of her kifu on file from her games there—and, although clearly she was a novice (although a little better than an average shodan) there were brief moments of clarity in her play, moments that were strikingly familiar to the style of a man who no one knew existed. _

_And he'd seen it in her eyes; a wide-eyed terror set in with her determination, as if she had made her decision but didn't want him to confront her on it. _

_He'd been a little confused at first; but now he knew why. _

"_Well, I am keeping him—and no, it's not an 'it', it's a boy. Yes, I had an ultrasound already—_

_He rolled over on the couch, taking a pillow with him and hoping it would stave off the argument in the other room._

"_Too bad! I'm not changing my mind—and anyway, what do you care about college? It's not like you're paying for my education anyway—"_

_Yeongha didn't even want to know what the other half of this conversation was sounding like, judging from what he was hearing on this side of the line. _

_He didn't know much about Hikaru's relationship with her parents, other than that it was strained at best. He knew she'd been an unruly child—she'd said as much herself—and that she'd had that brief stint as a professional Go player (which, now that he was really thinking on it, really _was _strange) and after that she had decided to get serious about her studies and jetted off to boarding school in Seoul. And they'd met her last year, and then she applied to Seoul National, and stayed. Somewhere along that line her relationship with her parents had deteriorated, and he was fairly sure it had something to do with her decision to say in Korea for university. _

_They'd been dating for a year, and he liked to think that they were something approaching serious. They'd talked a bit about her maybe moving in with him, when her lease was up—but there was a giant gap between living in the same house and having a baby. They'd skipped step one and landed on step twenty-one. _

_Yeongha couldn't stop thinking about it; in seven months give or take there'd be a baby in this fucking apartment, screaming down the walls and shitting everywhere. That sounded like a fate worse than death._

_He also couldn't stop thinking of Hikaru's face as she turned around—looking for all the world like she expected him to walk right out of her apartment. She hadn't entirely been barking up the wrong tree; everything in him froze and told him to run as far as he could, but the rest of him, the part that _loved _her, had him rooted to the spot. _

_Because he did—he really fucking loved her (as unfortunate a fate it sometimes seemed to be) and he couldn't imagine being that guy that she expected him to be. Even though he totally was that guy. If this was any other girl he would have been out the door a week ago without a backwards glance. But he wasn't that guy; not with Hikaru, anyway._

_The conversation on the other side of the wall descended into vague murmurs and low voices. Finally, it seemed to end completely. _

_Hikaru stepped out a few moments later, looking absolutely wrecked but somehow still standing, weary and tired and really fucking _pissed.

_He lolled his head to the side as she approached the couch, looking up at her. She looked down at him; that same indecipherable expression on her face. The one that had been there for a solid week now. _

_He wanted nothing more than to drag it off._

"_Hey," He found himself saying, before the more logical part of his brain could stop him, "If I proposed right now, would you say yes?"_

_And finally, _finally, _the mask dropped. Her impassive expression broke into something approaching apprehension and vague alarm. And then, "No." She scoffed. "I don't want to be pregnant in a wedding dress!"_

_He smiled, involuntarily. "Okay, so we postpone the wedding. But, would you?"_

_She eyed him skeptically. "Are you sure about this? We're eighteen. There is no reason to rush into this."_

"_Aside from that baby that will be here in like, half a year."_

_She shrugged. "That's my problem. I mean, my reasons are my own. I can't expect you to make a decision like this so young—_

"_And if I want to?" He rose from the couch, something weirdly like anger rising in him. "I can't want it, too?"_

_The look she gave him was wary. "You can."_

"_Good." This was absolutely unlike him: he was the who walked out in the middle of the night, who did what he wanted, who narcissistically loved only himself, who had no qualms being a downright, vindictive asshole—actually, he did that often, and with great relish—and the only thing he cared about more than himself was Go and being the best. _

_But. He didn't want to be that person anymore. He didn't want his superiority and his Go being the only things he cared about in life, and being an asshole was starting to get a little tiring. _

_This—he thought—this was something like what he wanted._

"…_Good?" She raised her brows, the alarm once again growing on her face._

_He smirked, conniving as all hell. "Expect an engagement ring at a very inopportune time."_

_She gaped at him in horror—there was nothing Hikaru hated more then causing a public scene, and Yeongha was merrily imagining many scenarios involving them in a crowded, public place, HIkaru mortified and melting into the ground. _

_._

_._

_._


End file.
